Even researchers at Mathematica, Social Security's prime contractor for the Ticket to Work program, could find "no consistent evidence of
impacts [of Ticket to Work mailings] on the number of months in which beneficiaries did not receive benefits
because of work, or on other outcomes." The researchers try to blame the failure of Ticket to Work on the recession.
5 comments:
How many beneficiaries would risk their benefits,knowing SSA may misinterpret a very minimal amount of work?
Answer:not many,i suspect.
hmmm, why don't people understand this.
Even on SSI, someone would have to work about 25 hours per month (at minimum wage) just to make as much as they would be "earning" on SSI. Add in DIB, which many people get, and there is absolutely NO incentive for people to return to work.
Would you rather sit at home, watch TV and hang out with your friends or have to go to work 25-40 hours per week (at a menial job) to make the same amount of money.
Return to work programs are a joke (at best). From a purely economic evaluation, it almost always makes more sense for the benefit recipient to stay at home instead of working. Unless you have an education/past work experience that will result in higher wages, SSI/DIB are actually the better choice.
7:03 has it right. As a working taxpayer who pays FICA, I'd love to see my former clients regain their health and return to work. However, from experience, I've learned to advise them to not attempt it UNLESS they ARE VERY CERTAIN that the return will be successful and permanent. After one or more years without the physical and/or mental stressors of the workplace, I've had a number of clients attempt to return to work. As time passes, they usually require increasing accommodations by their employers. Seldom have these work attempts lasted longer than a year. Then, when health or the employer requires work cessation, they have to reapply for SSDI.
Do DDS and ALJs give them credit for attempting to return to the workplace? No! Instead, the attitude is "Since you gutted out a year in an accommodated job, you should have been able to continue. Denial!"
While 8:35's "economic" analysis sounds logical, being on disability is not so great. Almost all of the clients I've represented in the last 25 years would have been able to keep their jobs--especially when one becomes destitute while waiting to obtain disability. When I run into former clients a year or more after they've obtained benefits, they have lost the look of desperation which they had during intake, but most say they would rather return to work if possible. You don't live very high off the hog on disability/SSI, but it's better than starving.
I'm 12:23. Sorry about the typo and sloppy editing. Paragraph 3, sentence two omitted the word "rather" to read, ". . would rather have been able to. . ."
@ 12:23
I never said that living on disability benefits is "great." Rather, from an economic standpoint, it is a better choice than working at a minimum wage job that actually requires going to work for 40 hours per week.
Yes, I realize there is a hardship involved in waiting to be approved. But once the benefits are actually received, there is no question that it makes more sense to continue receiving them than attempt to return to menial/unskilled/arduous work. Again, neither option is "great" or will provide a luxury lifestyle, but getting paid to stay at home beats having to work for it.
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